Is it even worth trying to stop global warming?

Question

Only a handful of countries are reducing CO2 emissions. The developing world, especially China, builds 3 coal plants per week. Fossil fuel consuption continues to increase. Is it true that we already have so much CO2 in our atmosphere that no matter what we do, the earth will continue to warm and positive feedbacks will kick in?

Answer 1

You make some very good points but believe it or not there still is a window of time to prevent this from happening. The problem is it may only be around 5 or 10 years give or take.
Unfortunately individual people making changes in their life (ex. recycling, using less electricity, buying less gasoline etc.) is simply not enough.
In order to prevent global warming from becoming irreversible governments all over the world must put caps on CO2 output immediately or else the problem will become out of our control within the next decade or so.
Right now in addition to America being a huge contributor to the problem, the other problems seem to lie with places like China and India who are the 2 fastest growing economies in the world. With such economic growth there are now millions more people in both those countries purchasing cars which add to the dilemma. Not to mention all those Chinese factories where so many American purchased goods are produced pumping out loads of greenhouse gasses every day.
To sum up the problem is huge and changes need to be made now. It's up to the various world leaders to enable this necessary change.

Answer 2

There is actually a theory, that global warming is a natural occurrence. It's based on 3 different factors. The tilt of the earth, the rotation of the earth, and the earths orbit around the sun. Each of these things normally fluctuates. The tilt fluctuates back and forth a few degrees, The rotation speeds up and slows down slightly, and the orbit varies between a circular orbit and an oval shaped pattern. For the earth to freeze or thaw it would take extreme weather. When each of these three factor reaches a certain point at the same time it would cause an extreme, either cold or hot. So you would either get an ice age or a thaw. We are currently in the process of a thaw. The planet will keep getting warmer, until it thaws completely, and then eventually the pendulum will turn back towards a freeze. You can better understand the relation of each factor if you were to graph them. You would have 3 different wavy lines like an alternating current. At the point that all three of these lines would cross at the same time would be the freeze or thaw.

This process actually takes billions of years.

Therefore, It wouldn't help anything to try and stop it, but being environmentally conscious will help other things. Like your health, and not creating an environment so toxic that it would be hard for life to exist.

Answer 3

Anyone who thinks they can actually stop global warming is pretty arrogant in my book. Even if human carbon emissions were the cause of it, there is no way that we would be able to drop our carbon output to the level needed to save the planet. All we could accomplish, would be to possibly slow it down for a few more years. To be honest, I have not been completely convinced that my carbon emissions are responsible for global warming. If someone wants my help in trying to save the planet, they had better establish a concrete link between the two, before they try coming up with a plan to fix it.

Answer 4

Actually no countries are reducing CO2 emissions. Fuel consumption will continue to increase as the economies in these countries flourish.

Don't worry though, the global temperatures have been fairly steady for the last 6 years, so either we're in "global medium" or we're heading into another cooling period like during the 60's and 70's. No one really knows the future.

Answer 5

This is the position taken by many of those who are claimed by Senator Imhof to be against the theory of AGW. i.e. they accept that global warming is occurring, and a substantial part of it is due to the activities of mankind but they think it is tooo late to do anything.
It is not just a handful of countries who are reducing CO2 emissions. There are 23 in the EU alone - that is a pretty big hand!. 147 countries have signed the Kyoto protocol
But what concerns me is who is that it will take a lot of effort to mitigate the impact on people - and already a significant number of people are suffering. My memory is that the best estimate of the cost is about $500bn per year.
The stakes are high!

Answer 6

I am doing my part. I have taken a vow to keep my living space half the size of Al Gore's twenty room mansion in Tennessee. Ditto for my utility bills.

Answer 7

No, and it is also impossible. A better use of all the resources currently devoted to stopping global warming and those spent hand wringing, name calling and fingerpointing would be to prepare for the inevitable effects of increased global temperatures.

Answer 8

Is it even worth trying to stop a 50000 hp train if you only have control over a 500 horse power engine?

Answer 9

You know you are going to die. Is it even worth breathing right now????
Just do what you think you must and stop getting into the trap of finding reasons (or no reasons) not to do it.
If we stop/reduce the pollution, I think Mother earth will still find the way to put things right. But the first step will always have to be ours.

Answer 10

Yeah it will get warm for a few thousand years then get cold for a few thousnad years then get warm for a few thousand years. Its called planetary evolution not global warming. You'll be dead 800 times over to give a crap.



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